


Goodbye Brown Eyes

by Rollinginthesheep



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:24:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollinginthesheep/pseuds/Rollinginthesheep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goodbyes are difficult. They are painful and seem too much to bear at times. They can rip out your heart and make you sob so hard you can’t see straight. But goodbyes happen for a reason and with each night came a new dawn. </p><p>I had no idea where I was heading but I the knowledge that I didn’t have to know settled my mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Brown Eyes

Saying goodbye is something we do in our daily lives. From farewelling the local barista who serves your daily coffee to the goodnight text to your mother just to ease her constantly paranoid mind. We barely think twice of it on these occasions because you simply do it all over again the next day. Simple interaction and etiquette one does to function in daily life. No honest meaning is behind these words because it lacks a permanent meaning. Goodbye isn’t goodbye unless it’s for good; it’s simply a _‘see you later’._

Then there are those goodbyes that create finality in your life. That knowledge, ache in your chest and pit in your stomach when you know that the finality is there. You won’t see this person again. At least not in the same way. Walking away and willing yourself not to turn back and wrap your arms around them one last time just to feel the warmth.

I remember walking away from Liam and I’s apartment my heels echoing against the pavement, my eyes watering with unshed tears. I felt cold, frozen like ice and stiff. It felt like I was climbing a mountain each step I took the ache of my limbs when I moved. The evening sky cast ominous shadows along the pathway making the monsters that merely existed in the back of my mind. I only had a packed bag slung over my shoulder full of clothing and necessities. The rest of my things could be collected in the formality of daylight.

I had no idea where I was going I was merely walking. I knew Liam had tried to make me stay, telling me that I could spend one last night at the place and sort everything else out after a good long sleep. But it was obvious I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight no matter where I rested my head. I couldn’t stay in the apartment either way. I couldn’t stay there being reminded of us. The place reflected us so much as a couple from the pictures on the wall to the clothes thrown around our shared bedroom.

I couldn’t even look at Loki who was bounding around with a yappy bark when we’d been talking about everything, wondering why he wasn’t getting fed or any form of attention. We’d been basking him in so much lately, using him as a buffer when we had nothing else to say that he’d become sheltered and demanding. Ironic really, we couldn’t even take care of our dog let alone our relationship.

I think part of me knew it was coming. It wasn’t like we’d been fighting or anyone had come between us, it was simply time that had divided us in a way that had led us to realizing we weren’t the people we were once upon a time. Those two younger foolish versions of ourselves that believed we could move mountains as long as we were together.

But we grow up. We forget the reasons to be who we once were, the mistakes we make along the way hardening us and giving us new lessons to ponder and apply to our everyday lives. Liam had learnt the bitter side of fame and the lack of trust that came with being a household name. I’d learnt what it had been like to be in the public eye and how everyone seems to expect something from you that you aren’t even sure you can deliver. It didn’t matter how happy you appeared, ten people compared to that one positive person was enough to make you even wonder why you bothered to begin with.

Part of me knew that this break up was the final time. It just seemed…over. We’d sat down, like mature adults and addressed where we were in our lives, what we wanted from ourselves, from each other. We were both heading down different paths, at different points in our lives. Our relationship didn’t seem like it fit in the crazy puzzle that was our existence like it once did.

Despite having this knowledge and the lack of drama that came from this discussion it still didn’t mean I felt any better about it all. Liam has been a huge part of my life for a long time now and I knew part of me would always love him even in twenty years when he forgets my middle name and has two children with a woman whose face I can’t even picture in my mind without the stab of bitter regret bubbling in the pits of my stomach.

I loved him so much and watched him achieve his dreams. I was so proud of him, everything he had become despite his fame. He was still the sweet, caring boy she’d first met back three years before. He’d simply grown up, discovered haircuts, gotten some tattoos and had millions of dollars and no idea what to do with them.

He always knew what to do to make my day better, even a mere smile and a conversation on skype when we were separated by thousands of miles of ocean. He always knew the right thing to say when I doubted my pursuits in my career, in my life. He had a calming aura that always steadied me, kept me grounded when my head was up in the clouds.

I loved Liam Payne. _I always will._

But I loved him enough to let him go and still have his friendship, than hang on and risk losing every part of him from my life. It was a price I was willing to pay for him and us.

As much as it hurt now, walking along the street watching traffic pass in such a mundane matter it felt as though it was merely another day. But it wasn’t like every other day, but those days would slowly ease the pain as they passed. I will remember how to smile without him, walk along the street and see a magazine stand with his face blaring out at me like it had so many times in the previous years. I will remember to laugh, to live and ground myself without him. I had to. _I wasn’t going to fall apart._ I owed him at least that, for everything we'd endured in the last few years.

Goodbyes are difficult. They are painful and seem too much to bear at times. They can rip out your heart and make you sob so hard you can’t see straight. But goodbyes happen for a reason and with each night came a new dawn.

I had no idea where I was heading but I the knowledge that I didn’t have to know settled my mind.

I would learn to live without Liam Payne. But I will never stop loving him, not for a moment. I will see him again and it will be different, we will no longer touch, exchange intimate moments or laugh about nothing in particular, wound up in each other.

I _could_ live without Liam. I knew I could. It was simply a step in front of the other into the unknown. An unknown I was ready to face on my own.


End file.
